Elevated Bridge B/C

[Earthsci_dude]

Hey everybody.
I decided to start a discussion for the new elevated bridge event. I had done boomilever for the last 2 years, along with bridge building the three years in division B before that. So i was planning on doing this next year.

I looked at the draft rules for this year. in a way it's sort of a mix of towers and bridge, so the best designs will use the combination of both i'd assume. possible other designs would be the "A" frame bridges, although that might work better for division B rules than in C. and this would also be a good year for using arches.

anybody have any thoughts on this event? (i guess this could be for both division C and B)

[Aia]

I have built towers and boomilevers in the past 2 years, but not bridges. Are there any crucial ideas about them that I should understand?

[dudeincolorado]

well i find them much easyer then towers at least the ones i desinged umm try some denser balsa for the peices conecting the two main side that helped me alot im not sure bout anything else

[sachleen]

I think I'm going to try my first few bridges in bass so I get a feel of what it can hold and what it should be like before I start doing balsa. With balsa, I feel its going to break because of the inconsistency in the wood before its going to break because of a design flaw.

[Pleiades]

I've already tried buliding an elevated bridge just to get the hang of it and see what it was like. I built mine out of chopsticks and superglue.

[Aia]

I think I'm going to try my first few bridges in bass so I get a feel of what it can hold and what it should be like before I start doing balsa. With balsa, I feel its going to break because of the inconsistency in the wood before its going to break because of a design flaw.

That's an intriguing idea! Do your structures get insanely strong upon using all that bass? Or do they just emphasize vulnerable/weak areas in the design?

[Earthsci_dude]

I think I'm going to try my first few bridges in bass so I get a feel of what it can hold and what it should be like before I start doing balsa. With balsa, I feel its going to break because of the inconsistency in the wood before its going to break because of a design flaw.

That's an intriguing idea! Do your structures get insanely strong upon using all that bass? Or do they just emphasize vulnerable/weak areas in the design?

yes, that is actually a very good idea. balsa in general is a lot more inconsistent than bass, although i hand select and test each piece before i buy it, so i don't usually have that problem as much. I'm lucky enough i guess to have a hobby shop near by that has a great selection of wood and sizes (of bass, balsa, spruce, cherry, etc) and it was always good quality. The owner called me "that boomilever kid" cuz i went in there so much. but i guess i can't be the boomilever kid next year =O.. guess i'll have to settle for the bridge boy.

[sachleen]

My coach gets all of our wood.. He doesn't usually bring a scale or anything, and we tend to have a lot of wood left over. too bad we cant return it, that would be awesome! Maybe 'exchange' it??

[Earthsci_dude]

haha.. i wish you could "exchange" it... my division B coach always bought big packs of wood. but in a pack of like 50 sticks only like 10 of them were any good. so instead of wasting so much, now i buy it on my own at the hobby shop.

i've came up with several designs, that i like. so we'll see how much i still like them after i build them. i'll prolly be doing that sometime soon.

[Aia]

I built an elevated bridge about a week ago according to the new specs. Based on my resulting structure, I'm guessing this event will be pretty difficult. I want to use a tension member to connect the distal ends so badly!

I have not tested it yet.... but as soon as my Scioly team meets up (3wks probably) I'll test it then. Has anyone else started building?

[Pleiades]

Your team meets in the summer?? Last year my team didnt start meeting until like early october i think it was. I built two bridges right after the draft rules came out. Those bridges were made out of chopsticks so obvioulsy they wouldnt be competitive but i just wanted to build something to see what the event was like. I built one division C bridge and one division B bridge. What do you think is a good efficiency range is for this event?

[Aia]

That sounds so cool! A chopstick bridge... haha, where did you come up with all those chopsticks?

My team meets in about late July to distribute the proposed rules from the coaching clinic.

I have no idea what the efficiency ranges will end up being. I've never built a bridge before this...

[Pleiades]

Well theres a market basket in the next town over that gives out free chopsticks at the sushi bar so i just take those It just so happens that that is the town that wins states every single year but thats beside the point. Do you get the proposed rules for every single event? Are they usually the same as the final rules? I know that my coach is going to a thing in arizona where they supposedly get rules too.

[dudeincolorado]

Your team meets in the summer?? Last year my team didnt start meeting until like early october i think it was. I built two bridges right after the draft rules came out. Those bridges were made out of chopsticks so obvioulsy they wouldnt be competitive but i just wanted to build something to see what the event was like. I built one division C bridge and one division B bridge. What do you think is a good efficiency range is for this event?

O.O
ummm my team didnt meet till january...and that was early for us

[Pleiades]

wow when do your regionals start?? My practice meets are in early december and early january. I'm trying to get my school to host a practice meet in late january but i'll probably have to make all the tests.